More than a year ago, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler said there could be in excess of 11,000 noncitizens registered to vote in Colorado and more than 4,000 of those who had cast ballots, and he has called noncitizen voter registration a "gaping hole" in the system.

But earlier this month, Gessler, a Republican, announced that his office had found only 141 people who were noncitizens registered to vote out of 1,416 names run through a federal database, and of those 141, only 35 who had cast ballots. That number represents 0.001 percent of Colorado's 3.5 million registered voters.

Critics of Gessler on the left say the concern over ballots being cast by thousands of voters who aren't U.S. citizens has been founded on myth, not math.

"It's created an atmosphere where voters, even ones who are entitled to vote, fear their registration may not be valid or that they'll be challenged at the polls," said Elena Nunez, executive director of Common Cause, a liberal group that has tangled with Gessler over election issues.

Gessler disputes the conclusion that there were only 35 noncitizens who cast ballots. First, he says, his search isn't over and will continue this year. But more important, he says, his search process so far has been limited, looking only at people who have gotten driver's licenses since 2006, and didn't include people who may have used noncitizen documents to get driver's licenses in other states and then moved to Colorado and gotten a driver's license here.

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It also doesn't include 458 people whose registrations have been either canceled or withdrawn since at least 2004 because of noncitizenship.

And it doesn't include 85 registered voters who had U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds placed on them in 2012, indicating they could be in the country illegally, he said.

"I think what a lot of people have missed is that this is not a comprehensive program that is designed to vet everyone," Gessler said. "This is an instance where we've been able to patch together (data) here and there to begin to solve this problem."

Gessler said Democrats seem to have a "cavalier, see-no-evil, hear-no-evil attitude" toward elections.

"Voter fraud is not tolerable, period," Gessler said. "If they want to argue that a little bit of vote fraud is OK, that's their argument. I think no vote fraud is acceptable."

Evidence lacking

In a state where hundreds of votes could make a difference in an election, Gessler said, there could be hundreds of noncitizen voters canceling out the votes of those who are eligible to cast ballots.

Yet even some county clerks say Gessler's examination has reinforced conventional wisdom that the incidence of noncitizens voting is extremely rare.

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"I haven't seen evidence that makes it (noncitizen voting) feel like an imminent threat," said Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Sheila Reiner, a Republican.

In Mesa County, for example, Gessler's office said there were three noncitizens registered, one of whom had voted.

Reiner said two of those registered who had not voted are inactive because of returned mail. The third, who has voted, has repeatedly said he is a citizen, said Reiner, adding that she would be "really surprised" if he is not.

"They started with 11,000 (estimated noncitizens registered), and it's gone down," said Pam Anderson, Jefferson County clerk and recorder and a Republican. "I think what these findings show is there's not a great deal of risk (of noncitizens voting) in these elections."

Gessler's office has said the number of noncitizen voters could not be identified sooner because of delays from the federal government in granting the secretary of state's office access to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security database.

The list indicates there were 42 noncitizens in Denver registered to vote and, of those, eight who voted.

However, Denver Clerk and Recorder Debra Johnson, a Democrat, said four of those people were registered because of clerical errors and had indicated they were not citizens. Another four did not check boxes indicating whether they were or were not citizens, but under 2004 guidelines from the secretary of state's office, Denver officials said, they were required to be registered.

That leaves 34 people who, Johnson said, did check boxes indicating they were U.S. citizens, something clerks have no way of verifying.

One of those people, Alison Silver, 36, a Canadian immigrant who voted in 2010, disputed the list put out by Gessler.

The Post attempted to contact dozens of those on the list put out by Gessler. Several noncitizens on the list who spoke with The Post said they were unaware they had been registered.

Irina Melnik, a 39-year-old immigrant from Ukraine registered in Denver, hasn't lived in Colorado for two years and she said she was unaware of being registered to vote.

"I'm not a citizen," said Melnik, who lives in the state of Georgia now and did not vote in Colorado.

Gabriel Goddard, a 52-year-old immigrant from Gambia registered in Denver, thought he might have filled out something by accident.

"I've never voted before in my life," said Goddard, who is not listed by Denver as one of the eight noncitizens who voted.

Wilson Karak, an immigrant from South Sudan, was bewildered when told he was registered to vote.

"I have no idea about that," said Karak, 39, who also did not vote.

Fraud implied

In Jefferson County, where Gessler identified eight noncitizens registered, the two voters who did cast ballots have been classified as inactive voters at least since 2008, according to county election officials.

Gessler's office hasn't alleged that any of the 141 noncitizens on the list are in the U.S. illegally and has said that some noncitizens may have been signed up through administrative errors or by noncitizens themselves mistakenly registering to vote.

But Gessler has implied there was significant fraud as a result of noncitizen voting.

A white paper put out by Gessler's office in 2011 identified 11,805 people as having used noncitizen documents to get driver's licenses and who might have been improperly registered to vote. Of those, 4,214 had voted at some point, the study said.

"My office has every reason to believe that thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote in Colorado," Gessler said during a legislative hearing in 2011 where he testified in favor of a bill that would have given him the power to demand that suspected noncitizens affirm their right to vote.

In August, prior to getting access to the federal database, Gessler mailed letters to 3,903 people who had used noncitizen documents to obtain driver's licenses and then registered to vote, asking them to either prove their citizenship or withdraw from voter rolls. Sixteen people voluntarily withdrew their names from voter rolls, while 482 submitted proof of citizenship. There were 1,011 letters returned as undeliverable because of no forwarding addresses.

For the remainder, Gessler's office was able to run checks on only 1,416 because it did not have alien registration numbers for the others. Of those, ultimately 144 were determined to be noncitizens registered to vote.

"We identified a gaping hole in our voter-roll integrity, and this effort will better protect our elections," Gessler said when the 3,903 letters went out. "We know there is a problem, and I am unwilling to accept fraud in our elections."

He added, "Once we cut through the political noise, voters will see a measured approach that enforces the law and ensures that legal votes aren't canceled out by illegal voters."

Critics pounced on the fact that there were three times as many Democrats who got the letters as Republicans. And the 35 people listed as noncitizens who voted included 18 registered Democrats, 10 unaffiliated voters and five Republicans.

While Gessler concedes his office hasn't found "thousands of noncitizens" registered or who may have cast ballots as first thought, he says he released those original numbers because he was being transparent. The numbers have decreased as his office has gotten better and clearer information along the way, and he has shared those numbers too, he said.

"Every time we've had information, we've put it out there publicly," Gessler said, complaining about the "obsessing" over particular figures. "It's a dynamic world we live in where things change."

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